


The Darkness of Ephemeral Things

by twinyards



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, another sad newtmas fic because idk what self love it what up friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinyards/pseuds/twinyards
Summary: “Do you ever think about it?”Minho’s question startled him, mostly because it was seemingly out of nowhere and Thomas had no idea what he meant. “Think about what?”“What would have happened, how you would feel, if Newt hadn’t died.”





	The Darkness of Ephemeral Things

**Author's Note:**

> Hey my lovelies!!! I really hope you enjoy this little fic per request of one of my tumblr followers.  
> I promise it's not as sad as the last one - just enough angst to get you in the reading mood.

He was somewhere around nineteen years old, if he looked his age, and Thomas had already discovered that knowledge could be a very damning thing. The safe haven was beautiful, if you didn't know what it had cost them to get there. Thomas often wondered if he would enjoy the softly swaying cat tails, the air that tasted ever so slightly of salt, and the sun that kissed your skin just enough to warm but not burn you, if he didn’t know the damage inflicted on the rest of the world. 

If he didn’t know the names of so many people who weren’t alive to see it. 

Some months had passed since the fall of the world he knew. Since Denver had ceased to be the sanctuary the world wanted it to be. Since he’d lost his one of his best friends and the person he loved. And Thomas still felt the ache. 

The ache that told his brain there was something missing from his body. The ache that made his bones feel brittle and cold. The ache of a body that should have been next to his but wasn’t, and would never be again.

It was the ache that often sent him away from the bonfires of his companions, and had Thomas creeping towards the hills surrounding their little corner of the world, where he could watch over his friends in quiet solitude. Most days, no one questioned it when he quietly rose from dinner and slunk away. Sometimes, Minho or Aris would try to stop him with a sad smile or a wave to join them, but Thomas rarely let that stop him. 

Sometimes that ache demanded space from the rest of the world. Sometimes that ache wouldn’t let him breathe until he’d shed a few silent tears, alone in the dark. 

Tonight, the tears would not come. Thomas had been waiting for what felt like hours, watching as fires died out and people returned to their tents and sheds or whatever they’d built to house them, and claimed sleep for the night. The stars were bright here. Tiny beacons to keep the blackness of night at bay. Sometimes they comforted him. Sometimes Thomas hated them for staying the same when everything else had fallen apart.

He did not startle when Minho sat himself in the sand beside him, staring down at the last remaining fire and the few kids left laughing around it. Sometimes Minho felt the ache too, and he would join Thomas in his silent watch, but never for long. Minho’s ache seemed to subside once he understood that Thomas was still breathing. Thomas was glad he could offer his friend that small solace, even if it wasn’t an intentional act. 

They sat together for a few quiet moments before Minho broached the silent, his tone strong but contemplative. “You come up here more than you used to.”

Thomas considered lying for a moment, but settled on the truth. It was Minho, after all. If anyone deserved the truth from Thomas, it was him. “I don’t always feel right. Being down there with the rest of them.”

“You belong down there more than anyone else.” Minho told him, and though his head stayed pointed towards their encampment, Thomas thought he saw Minho flick him a concerned glance. “You’re the reason we’re all here, Thomas. Everyone looks up to you. That’s your place; your home. After everything we’ve been through, that’s one of the only things that  _ should _ feel right to you.”

“They’re all just - so happy.”

Minho seemed to pause in shock at that. He pressed at Thomas almost tentatively. “And you’re not?”

This was the conversation Thomas always hoped to avoid. Because how was he supposed to explain to people that were happy that he couldn’t even find the strength to want to take a deep breath? That sometimes he could feel himself suffocating on the weight of all he’d lost, and he simply didn’t care? That sometimes he went to bed, and hoped he wouldn’t wake up, if only so he’d be reunited with the faces that haunted his dreams.

But Thomas kept his suffering quiet, the way he always had. Even when he ached for someone to move in close, to press their shoulder against his in comfort, to tell him it was okay to want things you couldn’t have. Thomas would always let himself sink into oblivion rather than risk someone drowning with him. 

He settled on the least painful version of the truth. “I can’t just forget what happened before we got here, Minho. Not the way everyone else seems to.”

Minho let out a noise of startled disgust. “You’re one stupid shank if you think any of us have forgotten what had to happen to get us here. Everyone down there has demons. But we’re alive. And we’re allowed to be happy about that. So are you.” Minho’s voice softened. “One day it won’t hurt so much.”

Thomas didn’t know if he believed that. How could pain like this ever go away? Did you ever really know if you’d be okay again? Did you ever really come back from the kind of loss that made you wish you could forget how to breathe?

And Thomas thought maybe he was a little more broken than he was capable of healing, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do about that. So instead of thanking his friend for his consolation, he offered him another small truth.

“I’m not sure I can bear losing anyone else. If I let myself get close to them, and something happens - I’m just not sure I can bear it.”

Minho looked at him sadly then. So sadly that if Thomas hadn’t already been broken he would have shattered all over again.

“We can’t all be together forever, Thomas,” Minho said, though not unkindly. “You know that.”

And Thomas did. Better than anyone. 

There was the truth that terrified Thomas the most: they were all human, ephemeral things. They would all break. They would all fall. They would all die. And there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t be one of the last to go, forced to watch as the rest fell away into the other memories that haunted him. 

And that was the darkness of ephemeral things - they were a light in the deepest black, until they weren’t. But even after, you remembered what that light looked like, and you couldn’t help wondering what could have been if it had stayed. 

Their silence fell like a blanket of steel around their shoulders. Thomas was sure Minho could feel the weight of it; the cold press of despair that was creeping from Thomas’ body and tainting the air. He wanted Minho to leave - to take his happiness and hold it as close and he could possibly keep it, and let Thomas sink alone.

Minho didn’t leave. He’d never fled when things grew alarming or tense or frightening; not since that first day in the Maze when he’d left Thomas to save Alby and face the Grievers alone. Thomas had the feeling Minho was still trying to make up for that small moment of cowardice, despite Thomas having forgiven him long ago. 

“Do you ever think about it?”

Minho’s question startled him, mostly because it was seemingly out of nowhere and Thomas had no idea what he meant. “Think about what?”

“What would have happened, how you would feel, if Newt hadn’t died.”

A Griever crash landed in the narrows tunnels of Thomas’ heart. The pain he’d been shoving down, already unbearable, forced itself to the surface with renewed vigor and an even more acidic weight. The tears came, and he couldn’t stop them and wasn’t sure if he should even try. Because every beat of his heart was too fast too hard, and he could feel it in his head in his toes behind his eyes and he can’t breathe fast enough to lie. 

“ _ Every day _ .”

The words rushed out of him along with a choked sob. Of course he’d thought about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thomas had analyzed every decision and every step and every aching breath he’d taken with Newt at his side, and thought of all the things he’d have done differently in hopes of changing the other boy’s fate.

If Newt had lived,  _ if Newt had lived _ … Thomas would be in heaven. He’d be living in a dream, somewhere on a cloud that never settled itself on the ground. He’d be perfect he’d be whole he’d be  _ healed _ .

And what a selfish thought it was, to wish that Newt were here and alive and that he were the one sitting next to Thomas instead. To wish that he’d say,  _ bloody hell Tommy, stop being ridiculous! We’re alive. We ought to be celebrating!  _ And Thomas would believe it, the way he believed so many things, simply because Newt told him too. 

If Newt had lived, maybe Thomas wouldn’t be harboring a secret in his heart that felt like it was tainted with a Griever’s sting, sending him through the Changing again and again and again, bringing back the most terrible memories of his life. Memories that haunted him. Memories of the fight to survive. Memories that were also the best of his life.

Because Newt was in them. There at Thomas’ side. Where he belonged.

Thomas had left his body in that crank place. He’d run for what he’d done and not looked back. He hadn’t said goodbye he hadn’t said he was sorry  _ he hadn’t said I love you _ .

And it was love. Not loved. Always love because that would never be past tense. Not with Newt. Never with Newt. 

And sobs were shaking him in earnest even though he hadn’t spoken, and Minho pressed his shoulder against Thomas’ in silent comfort but said nothing until Thomas wasn’t so ragged and tortured and frayed at the edges. 

“I miss him, too,” Minho finally said, and there was a thickness in his voice that made Thomas realized his friend had been crying too. “I know it’s not the same, but I miss him, too.”

“Not the same?” Thomas queried, perplexed.

Minho flashed him a pitying look, with a half smile. “Newt was one of my best friends. We both know he was more than that to you.”

“I - What - How did you -” Thomas stammered, but he couldn’t form the words. 

“It’s okay.” Minho said simply, looking away and nudging Thomas with his shoulder again. “We all knew. Even in the Maze. Even when Teresa and Brenda were around. It was just the way you two were magnetized together. Like you couldn’t stand to be apart. Like you weren’t supposed to be.

“Newt… He wasn’t okay in the Maze. I know you know that; that he told you how he got his limp. Even after his leg healed, he was still haunted and scared. Until you. From the day you stepped out of that box, you brought a little life back into him. I guess I just didn’t realize how much life he put back into  _ you _ .”

Thomas’ muscles quivered with the strength of forcing back his sobs. He wanted to cry until he could never cry again. He wanted to go to sleep and dream of the boy with the strange accent and the chocolate brown eyes and the golden hair Thomas wished he could run his fingers through. He wanted to break and plead and offer himself up in exchange for the one person he would do anything to bring back.

But he couldn’t bring Newt back. Nothing he did would ever bring him back. 

“I don’t know how to do this without him, Minho. I don’t think I want to do this without him.”

“So don’t.”

Thomas’ head reeled, but he couldn’t piece together in his brain. “What do you mean?”

Minho answered so simply, as if it were the easiest thing in the world, “Just because someone dies, it doesn’t mean they leave you. Newt can be with you every step of the way if you want him to be.” 

And with that, he stood up and left Thomas with his reeling thoughts, as if he understood that Thomas needed to come to understand what that might mean on his own. 

People were ephemeral. They burned brightly, for a few brief moments, and then they faded away. But maybe Thomas was wrong. And maybe Newt wasn’t ephemeral. 

Maybe Newt was eternal. 

He had lived and he had died, but Thomas would never let him truly die. Not if he looked at things the right way. Newt was alive in every breath Minho took, in every laugh the survivors shared, in every moment Thomas found the strength to smile. His body was gone, and would continue to be gone, no matter how deeply Thomas wished the opposite, but his spirit - Newt’s spirit lived on in each and every one of them. 

He had left them. He had joined them. A piece of his essence, of his strength and composure and resolve and  _ love _ , a piece of his soul, a piece of his sacrifice, was now grafted to each of their hearts like armor. 

With a heaving breath, and a few more careful tears, Thomas found the spot on his heart where’d he’d placed the one love he would never let go of, offered it a thanks for never leaving him, and rose to his feet to go and join his friends. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you have requests, please send me a message on tumblr @beckcobalt and I'll do my best to write something up for you relatively quickly!  
> As always, thank you so much for reading, and be sure to live comments/kudos if you enjoyed this :-)


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